Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson spoke to the Sauk County GOP today, and I just happened to be nearby…

Tommy Thompson, perhaps better known as Tommy!, who served 14 years as Wisconsin’s governor before leaving to serve as Dubya’s HHS secretary. He’s 70 years old, if I’m doing my math right, but still has that old Tommy!-ness going for him.

Here’s a few short clips from his speech today. First, an Illinois vs. Wisconsin retrospective from 1986:

You know what all those businesses in Illinois are doing now? Looking north.

Next clip, Tommy does a little Trog-like credit-taking:

Sorry, I clipped that off a little too short. He said “we went to the Rose Bowl and we won three times!”

Hey, it happened on his watch.

Now a little comparison with Governor Doyle, who served two terms before our current Governor Walker:

And one more, this time about Alaska and caribou. If you haven’t watched any of the others, watch this one:

And Rep. Jeff FitzGerald, current Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, probably has the longest odds of winning the primary, but he’s one of the legislators who pushed Gov. Walker’s reforms through, so by God we owe him for that.

All that said, Tommy’s still Tommy!, and he was the only candidate who actually attended today’s caucus. Seventy years old, and he can really command a room. The other campaigns better stop ceding these events to him, because he’ll win votes just by the force of his own personality.